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Profiling and Assessments

In order to gain a competitive advantage in today’s economy, your company needs to do “something” better than your competitors. Whether it’s a better product, better marketing, better customer service – you cannot expect to compete if your business is equal to or worse than others in your industry.

The same is true with your recruitment. If you advertise in the same place, use the same job description, and ask the same interview questions, you’re going to hire the same people, and then there is nothing that’s going to set your company apart.

Looking for New Ways to Hire Better People

Companies that try inventive strategies for hiring better employees are the ones that become more likely to find better employees. While you do not need to reinvent the wheel, you do need to make sure that something about the hiring process is designed to weed out the less valuable employees that would have potentially been picked up by your competition.

Many companies have chosen to add recruitment tools that give them more information on the type of individual they may be hiring, using profiles and applicant assessments that give them insight into the abilities of the applicant.

What Are Recruitment Assessments?

Assessments are “tests” that tell you something about the applicant. You may have come across assessments in a variety of fields. For example, at the end of Year 12, you may recall taking the AST – a standardized test designed to “assess” your ability to thrive in college. If you’ve ever been to the hospital, you may have been asked a series of questions designed to assess your mental status.

Assessments are questions or activities that tell you something more about the applicant, and in recruitment, assessments may involve tasks or questions that give insight into the applicant’s abilities. While there are hundreds of potential recruitment assessments tools, some examples include:

• “Sell Me This Pen” Some assessment tools may put the individual on the spot, in an effort to see how they do in a given scenario. For example, in sales, the individual may be asked to sell them a pen, to assess how they handle selling something they didn’t prepare for.

• Personality Profiles Other tests may look at personality profiles. Using the same sales example, you want someone in your company that is outgoing and relaxed to handle sales. Perhaps you choose to have them take a personality profile test in order to see if their personality profiles as outgoing and friendly, rather than angry and/or introverted.
Recruitment companies also test their own recruitment tools and develop profiling strategies that show if an employee is a hard worker, a problem solver, or a fast learner.

The Value of Applicant Profiling

Assessment and profiling may seem like a difficult additional step, but they can actually be very easy to implement and have several advantages that may help you with your decision. These include:

• An Assessment/Profile Clearly the greatest benefit is that you know more about the candidate, and if your assessment tools are accurate, you can find out who the individual is, what they’re good at, and more. Remember that experience doesn’t necessarily translate from job to job. What you really need is someone that can learn and shows the skills that they need to thrive in the position.

• Self-Selection Assessment tools also give the applicant a chance to show a behavior that is crucial for being a good employee. You want to hire someone that wants to work for your company so strongly that they’re willing to take any assessment or do any test that they need to in order to get the position. “Resume spammers” are usually just looking for any job they can get, applying as fast as they can. Assessments cut out the spammers, so you can get applications only from those you really want.

• More Information Finally, assessments and profiles are also simply more information. They’re your opportunity to get more data that you can then use to make a decision in the hiring process. You don’t even have to use them if you don’t want to, but if you want to hire the best people you need as much information as possible, and these assessments provide you with that information.

Assessments are becoming an important part of the application process for businesses that genuinely want to get ahead of their competition through outstanding hiring practices, and have many benefits that can help your company hire only the best people.

It May Be Time for Assessments and Profiles

Companies that do whatever it takes to beat out their competitors are the ones that are most successful. Resumes are great, but experience doesn’t always translate to success – especially in modern industries. Interviews are also useful, but it’s easy to cliché your way through a great interview.

With limited information, the more you can learn about the applicant the more likely your company will be successful, and by adding applicant profiles and assessments to your recruitment practices, you give yourself the best chance of achieving success.

At Recruit Shop, we provide recruitment assessment tools for businesses all around Sydney and across Australia. Call us at Recruit Shop today to find out more.